Slashdot Mirror

Its worthy to note here that Qwest Communications was also approached by the N.S.A., and they refused to provide data without a court-issued warrant. The CEO of Qwest was later charged and convicted of 19 counts of Insider Trading. Read about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/14qwest.html

Yup, and Yahoo never collaborates unethically with the Chinese government. But hey, if people want to believe Google is more 'evil' than the others, I guess people see only what they want to see, or rather, what media FUD campaigns want them to see.

Senator Chris Dodd's (D-CN) effort to filibuster the Telcomm immunity provision in the U.S. Senate failed by a Cloture vote of 76 to 10. The (amended) bill will now be considered on the full Senate floor.

More details can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/washington/17cnd-nsa.html?hp

Memory Alpha is a fan site. A useful resource, to be sure (every time I google some Trek Trivia I end up there), but it doesn't serve the purpose of startrek.com, which is to help sell the franchise. Problem is, the franchise is pretty much dead, which is why startrek.com is shutting down.

I can't resist the chance for some finger pointing. The most popular pointee is Rick Bermann, who ran the franchise during its worst shark-jumping days. But the sad fact is, all that went wrong with ST originates with the same guy who started it Gene Roddenbery. He probably invented the basic concept, but beyond that there's all kinds of stuff he managed to take credit for that really belonged to other people. (If you can find the pre-Trekkie book The Making of Star Trek, you'll find it an eye-opener.) Worst of all, he consistently screwed over his writers (this recent interview with David Gerrold is revealing). When Star Trek was really good, it was mainly due to the writing. Yet Roddenberry and Bermann both made it a policy to antagonize the people who did the actual writing.

Good buy, good riddance.

The summary points out E85 as a possible alternative to gasoline that lowers emissions. From what I have read it appears that E85 is not something that will reduce emissions. Looking at Wikipedia's E85 entry and today's NY Times article, it appears that E85 will lower fuel efficiency up to 20-30% (depending on the car). From Wikipdia's Ethanol Fuel article it appears that comparing to gasoline, CO2 emissions are the same, CO emissions are lower, but more ozone is produced. I'm not sure if these numbers are for an equivalent amount of gas vs. ethanol or whether they take into account that you need more ethanol/mile.

I understand if people want to push E85 as a gasoline replacement to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But it definitely does not seem to be something that can easily lower our emissions.

it's like writing bad checks to cover bad checks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14krugman.html?em&ex=1197781200&en=36b8826fa6894b94&ei=5087%0A

time to get real yet? let's think for a moment where all the real money is going/has gone forever.

it could never happen here in the land of the scriptdead pr ?firm? georgrwellian fairytail?

all the software in the universe will never be able to balance those books. you, & yOUR children, will be paying for this mess (in several ways) for decades to come.

The Concorde had a NiMBY problem not because of the sonic boom, but because it was crazy loud on takeoff. But it didn't get to 600 MPH just after takeoff. New York Times article on Concorde's final departure (which doesn't mention sonic booms).

Look at the article posted by Zonk on Tuesday http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/technology/11ask.html?em&ex=1197522000&en=f58e933b4945d926&ei=5087%0A

"But underscoring how difficult it is to completely erase one's digital footprints, the information typed by users of AskEraser into Ask.com will not disappear completely. Ask.com relies on Google to deliver many of the ads that appear next to its search results. Under an agreement between the two companies, Ask.com will continue to pass query information on to Google. Mr. Leeds acknowledged that AskEraser cannot promise complete anonymity, but said it would greatly increase privacy protections for users who want them, as Google is contractually constrained in what it can do with that information. A Google spokesman said the company uses the information to place relevant ads and to fight certain online scams."

And I didn't have to click past a full page ad on Tuesday.

"I'm not supposed to believe an article from a fairly respectable technology news site"

I didn't say don't believe it, just comprehend it. Just because a stock is "struggling" doesn't mean the company is. You extrapolated that little bit yourself.

You said, "... don't forget that MS pumped in a whole heap of money into Apple at one point to basically keep them solvent." ...which is simply wrong. They DIDN'T do that to keep them solvent. Again, you are reaching conclusions not supported by facts. You appear to be relying on one article and drawing many inaccurate conclusions.

"but I am expected to believe the religious spoutings of some fervent, frothing-at-the-mouth Apple acolyte"

Uh...you can check Microsoft's stock price yourself-I didn't make it up. It's called "the internet". Try it out sometime. If you can't figure out how to do that, go by a newspaper.

PC World reputable? Sure, fine. I can't find any example that disputes that-but just because a magazine or newspaper has a history of being reputable, doesn't meant that the people they hire to write their stories are honest. Plus, you can't always depend on the editors to be able to check all the facts-that's the reporters job. Seriously, if you believe everything you read, you must be a REALLY confused person-because different authors will slant stories differently. Some are completely unbiased and write pure, good, well-balanced articles. But come on! Where have you been?

Here is an article that was published on December 7th, 2007 in the New York Times (a reputable publication)

USA TODAY FINDS TOP WRITER LIED
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EEDA1131F933A15750C0A9629C8B63

By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: March 20, 2004

Jack Kelley, a star foreign correspondent at USA Today before he resigned earlier this year, appears to have fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major articles in the last 10 years, including one that earned him a finalist nomination for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, the newspaper reported yesterday.

Oh wait! Did I say that the NYT was a reputable publication? I better check my facts!

Ex-Reporter For The Times Tells in Book Of Deceptions
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DF113CF934A15751C0A9629C8B63
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: February 27, 2004

Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who was found last year to have fabricated or plagiarized portions of more than three dozen articles, admits many of his deceptions in a forthcoming memoir but writes that they were fueled by ambition, cocaine and alcohol abuse and an undiagnosed condition of manic depression.

These took about 10 seconds to find. There are more. Sure you want to believe everything you read?

"I'm not supposed to believe an article from a fairly respectable technology news site"

I didn't say don't believe it, just comprehend it. Just because a stock is "struggling" doesn't mean the company is. You extrapolated that little bit yourself.

You said, "... don't forget that MS pumped in a whole heap of money into Apple at one point to basically keep them solvent." ...which is simply wrong. They DIDN'T do that to keep them solvent. Again, you are reaching conclusions not supported by facts. You appear to be relying on one article and drawing many inaccurate conclusions.

"but I am expected to believe the religious spoutings of some fervent, frothing-at-the-mouth Apple acolyte"

Uh...you can check Microsoft's stock price yourself-I didn't make it up. It's called "the internet". Try it out sometime. If you can't figure out how to do that, go by a newspaper.

PC World reputable? Sure, fine. I can't find any example that disputes that-but just because a magazine or newspaper has a history of being reputable, doesn't meant that the people they hire to write their stories are honest. Plus, you can't always depend on the editors to be able to check all the facts-that's the reporters job. Seriously, if you believe everything you read, you must be a REALLY confused person-because different authors will slant stories differently. Some are completely unbiased and write pure, good, well-balanced articles. But come on! Where have you been?

Here is an article that was published on December 7th, 2007 in the New York Times (a reputable publication)

USA TODAY FINDS TOP WRITER LIED
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EEDA1131F933A15750C0A9629C8B63

By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: March 20, 2004

Jack Kelley, a star foreign correspondent at USA Today before he resigned earlier this year, appears to have fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major articles in the last 10 years, including one that earned him a finalist nomination for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, the newspaper reported yesterday.

Oh wait! Did I say that the NYT was a reputable publication? I better check my facts!

Ex-Reporter For The Times Tells in Book Of Deceptions
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DF113CF934A15751C0A9629C8B63
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: February 27, 2004

Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who was found last year to have fabricated or plagiarized portions of more than three dozen articles, admits many of his deceptions in a forthcoming memoir but writes that they were fueled by ambition, cocaine and alcohol abuse and an undiagnosed condition of manic depression.

These took about 10 seconds to find. There are more. Sure you want to believe everything you read?

Microsoft does the same thing with the Zune Music Store. You don't get to buy an individual song (like you do with iTunes), instead you buy a block of points for $5 and use those points (in non-round numbers) to buy songs. MS is trying to minimize the bite of cc transaction fees buy forcing you into a minimum $5 purchase. The explanation for the non-round number of points needed to buy songs is that MS allows the RIAA to use variable pricing for their songs (unlike Apple which prices all songs at $0.99). It just "happens" to work out that you're always stuck with some leftover points that can't buy you anything.

Careful who you give
that saliva to...

For years, that disaster has been unfolding so slowly that it's been invisible.

Although many regard the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970 (FCAA) as the beginning of air pollution control in the United States, the national quest for clean air began long before.

Despite the multi-pronged clean-air campaign, there is a long way to go. It will take until 2007 to 2010, on the basis of E.P.A. projections, for Connecticut and the rest of the nation to breathe air that meets Federal ozone standards. And reducing airborne soot will take even longer, until 2015 at the earliest.

It's happened already. In Philipsburg NJ, a couple of civic-minded @$$holes broke into a house to beat up a Megan's law listed sex offender - but the guy they beat up had nothing to do with any sex offense ever.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D6153AF933A15751C0A963958260

This was an early case, and the county government screwed up - they took the extra step of delivering flyers to the neighborhood, freaking everyone out and thus whipping up a lynch mob. Nevertheless, the same principle stands. Yes, people have a right to know, but they don't have a right to pre-emptively use violence. Practical as well as moral reasons.

There's a reason why we give law enforcement to the police. They can make mistakes like anybody else - but who the hell knows what a fired-up, untrained, possibly psychotic random lynch mob can do, to *innocent people*?

Power failures are caused mostly by ruptured transmission lines, not by knocking out the actual power source.

Not anymore. After an earthquake the down power lines cause fires and secondary hazzards. As a safety upgrade many power plants are designed to shutdown in an earthquake, not to protect the generation plant, but to protect the city.

"When the earthquake struck, Intermountain's two 800-million-watt stations at the Delta plant automatically shut down, cutting off 50 percent of the power for the cities of Burbank, Anaheim, Glendale, Pasadena and Riverside. Intermountain's system is designed to shut down automatically in such incidents to avoid flooding Los Angeles with electricity that would have nowhere to go, causing the remaining generating stations in Utah to burn up because so many facilities and transmission lines would be down and the generators would speed up. "

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E0DB1630F93BA25752C0A962958260

From the NY Times article "I don't want it in my fishing grounds," said Mr. Martinson, 40, who docks his 74-foot boat, Libra, here at Yaquina Bay, about 90 miles southwest of Portland. "I don't want to be worried about driving around someone else's million-dollar buoy."

Mr Martinson, don't you realize we don't need your 74-footer named Libra. That kind has ruined the fishing grounds long since. Please read an article about that, here: http://www.ehponline.org/members/2004/112-5/focus.html

Btw, are you worried about the buoys ruining the fishing grounds or any potential damages you may make to the buoy? Where are the worst case liabilities?

Just thought I'd post a link to a NYTimes article regarding this type of seizure, in case anyone had forgotten or didn't believe it could be poossible.

Even if you:
Think he is an idiot.
Disagree with every aspect of his platform.
Think libertarians are idiots.
Don't have faith in his foreign policy.
Don't believe in a protectionism, isolationist foreign policy.

You should vote for Ron Paul.

Why? Because on the scale of small government big government, the U.S. has gone so far towards big government that its terrifying. We live in a police state now. In many situations you are guilty until proven innocent. You can be punished BEFORE your trial. Worse, the government is trying its best to be able to gain the right to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens.

Where does Ron Paul come in? Because he's the only potentially electable candidate who doesn't support this kind of shit. The previous paragraph of "scary shit" is bipartisan . Consider that TFA is going through a democratic congress.

Ron Paul, at least, is the only candidate who will bring _some_ balance to this level of rights violation. A centrist is _not_ the answer, because our policies have gotten so out of control. We need someone with some backbone, someone who will tell the DEA to stand down, and neuter the Justice Department. Perhaps even someone who could reorient the resources of the executive branch towards real security rather than the mechanisms of a police state.

If Ron Paul were to be elected, in 4-8 year he would be gone. A centrist would take power; maybe Hillary Clinton, maybe someone else. The country could be run on an even keel, and if you are a fan of liberal economic policies we could get back on track to building a welfare state. But in the interm, Dr. Paul would be able to cause a substantial amount of turmoil for the forces building a police state.

We, the average citizenry, have nothing to benefit from in a police state. Regardless of whether you are a libertarian or a socialist, it is necessary for us to elect a candidate who will stop this from happening. We can worry about economics and social welfare at a later date; we've got to stop this onrushing Orwellian nightmare first.

Stuart Brand and Dr. Patrick Moore, both long-time anti-nuclear environmental activists, have, in recent years, declared for nuclear power:

Stuart Brand:

"There were legitimate reasons to worry about nuclear power, but now that we know about the threat of climate change, we have to put the risks in perspective. Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but the great thing about it is you know where it is and you can guard it. The bad thing about coal waste is that you don't know where it is and you don't know what it's doing. The carbon dioxide is in everybody's atmosphere."
Link

Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of GreenPeace:

"We'd like to see 50 percent by the end of the century, maybe even more. But for now, the objective should be doubling the number of nuclear plants in operation."
Link

-kgj

There's a great article about New York's Indian Point nuclear plant in today's NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/nyregion/09towns.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Essentially, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo want to shut IP down because of the ecological and social consequences of, say, crashing a jet plane into the reactor. Even if we develop fast-breeder technology and start recycling our radioactive waste, we still have all this ecologically dangerous material deposited around the biosphere.

This is not a black and white issue. You and your PhD family might think you see the issues clearly, as scientists in a given field often imagine they do. With only intelligent engineering and management, we can solve the world's energy crisis using nuclear fusion! But who's to say the US won't be the next USSR, and the bumpkins in the republic of New Texicada won't be able to afford to run/manage/secure their fleet of power plants.

IMO, our energy solution should decay gracefully just in case civilization collapses. I consider myself semi-intelligent and semi-informed, but don't begrudge the misguided hippies who "feel" there's something inherently wrong with fusion.

Next up, plug your hydrogen car into the grid as a generator. Don't bother pointing out that all this conversion will lose some efficiency; of course it will. But think about the brownouts California was suffering a few summers ago. People will pay good money to escape no air conditioning, and some transmission loss doesn't change that.

"When you are in public, you are in public." should not equal "When you are public, you are presumed to have criminal intent." This is yet another symptom of the growing perceptual gap between the police and the community they are supposed to "protect and serve". There are new stories every day about the effects of the increased militarization of the civilian police forces. Some of the stories are about SWAT teams kicking in the wrong door and terrorizing and/or shooting innocent people in their own homes. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/10/06/tennessee.shooting.02.ap/index.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188934,00.html http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1107/474003.html
Some of the stories are about police view everyone they don't like as a "badguy" and then using that to justify violence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tOVkT2YESU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e2-qi0Rc3w&feature=related
And some of the stories are about police purposefully criminalizing citizens when they want to protest peacefully (another right fading away) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/28/SURVEILLANCE.TMP http://www.notinourname.net/restrictions/infiltration-19feb04.htm http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0101/msg00193.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html

Why do we want to add power to an already out of control aspect of our government? When did the police stop serving the people of the community and start serving political masters?

I follow your argument, and I agree that there's a place for charity spending beyond providing food aid.

Still, providing basic services to the neediest people is going to have an impact beyond "next Tuesday."

Providing $200 worth of fertilizer, for example, could have a more positive impact on more people than $200 worth of OLPC laptop -- it would help feed people in the short term, and in the profits from a good crop would enable the reinvestment in fertilizer and seed needed to make a farmer more productive for years to come.

Similarly, $200 worth of medications costing only a few cents a dosecould save the lives of hundreds of children -- a few of whom might grow up to be contributors to a strong, sustainable economy.

There's a need for interventions like the OLPC project. However, I can't imagine that a single XO Laptop will improve the lives of as many people as $200 dollars worth of more basic aid. Just my 2 cents, though. Now to go put my money where my mouth is.

Why point to the C-Net version of the article when the original article is freely available online here?

According to a quick check of Wikipedia, the Florida counties involved in the hand recounts were Broward, Miami Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia. The issues in Florida revolved around counting problems and ballot design. Of the four counties involved in the recount, the first three are heavily Democrat controlled, while Volusia is not. (Although according to the NY Times, Volusia was hostile to Bush in the 2000 election anyway). The infamous "Butterfly" ballot was designed by a Democrat controlled county election board (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa Lepore, who was elected as a registered Democrat). Do you think Palm Beach county designed the ballot in order to get Bush elected, or that they're just incompetent Democrats who thought the larger print would help elderly voters vote in more Democrats?

The state of Florida didn't design or count the ballots at issue in the 2000 election, they just certified the results. The counties at issue were not Bush-friendly. Trying to blame Bush or Republicans for somehow creating the mess by magically controlling them is ridiculous.

The complaints in Ohio in 2004 revolved around vote counting/re-counting as well as polling place availability and voting machine availability. Both were supposedly issues in the voting locations where Kerry had the most support, in densely populated areas.

Now, knowing that densely populated areas were heavily Democrat controlled (hence why they also went for Kerry) and that in Ohio the County elections board deals with all counting issues, do you think it's reasonable that in a heavily Democrat controlled county the Democrat elections board was miscounting things in order to favor Bush?

So let's take machine availability and malfunctions. Cuyahoga County was at the center of the controversy. Like the other counties in Ohio, they buy their own voting machines (although they wanted the State to pay them back for replacing the Diebold machines that caused them problems). Want to review the 54 pages of Democrat elected officials in the county? Do you really think they were conspiring to disenfranchise their own Democrat voters in order to throw the election to Bush? Or is it more likely that they're just more incompetent Democrats who weren't able to organize the voting process in their County?

I mentioned precincts as well as counties because in Ohio, the word was that certain heavily Democrat precincts had problems with their voting machines. Since they're heavily Democrat precincts, do you really think that the Precinct people there were Republicans in control of the Precinct polling location? You can do the research to prove that it wasn't, but instead certain people choose to believe something that doesn't even make sense on the face of it, that somehow a cabal of Republicans managed to physically control precincts in heavily Democrat areas in order to suppress their votes.

They're such stupid accusations it's hard to see why anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the elections process could take them seriously. As for the original point, he wanted to run statistical tests on the 2000 and 2004 elections for those "problem" areas in order to analyze whether similar problems to the recent Russian election occurred. My original point was that the actual voting process in those "problem" areas was controlled by Democrats, so what incentive did they have to somehow arrange to alter vote totals to favor Bush?

Putin controlled the election machinery in Russia. Bush, nor the Republicans, controlled the election machinery in the vast majority of areas that were claimed to be problems in the 2000 and 2004 elections. There's no real comparison possible.

And according to the New York Times, Gore would have won the state by 171 votes.

Ugh. Now that I've read the Wikipedia article on "naked short selling", I'm probably going to have to edit it. It doesn't mention some of the real problems. "Naked short selling" creates fake stock, which is then purchased and owned by someone. And they can vote that stock. This can lead to more votes than there are shares outstanding.

The fake stock created by naked short selling is supposed to be replaced by buying real stock within 13 days. But that's not always happening. "Overstock.com" has had such fake stock outstanding for years, more fake stock than they actually have outstanding.

Here's a New York Times article that discusses the issue. Forbes has also written about this.

The top stocks with fake stock outstanding for long periods are:

• Overstock.com
• Martha Stewart
• Netflix
• Blockbuster
• Delta Airlines

Ron Paul has about 104,000 donors. His donor-feed is at:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/webservices/REST/fundraiser?name=liberty

It's not clear to me [and I've searched a bit] if that number is total number of unique donors or total number of donations. Other articles touching on the subject are
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/us/politics/06paul.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/10/12/politics/horserace/entry3362383.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=Horserace_3362383

Now... has Ron Paul found the most donors? I don't think so. Barack Obama had 92,000 new contributors in the 3rd Quarter, and has had 350,000+ thus far
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-10-01-fundraising_N.htm

So in short, cut the crap. Regardless if you appreciate Ron Paul's unique perspectives or think he's a crazy foolish man, don't make things up. Use facts. The truth is out there ;), and in this case it makes it pretty clear that Ron Paul has not had more individual donors than any other candidate in the race.

While I can't disagree completely, it seems that some authority figures are using YouTube to get their message out. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has its own YouTube channel with over 17k subscribers. I don't know how many subscribers you need on YouTube to be popular, but 17k seems like a lot.

I guess the New York Times wrote an article about the whole thing. You can check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/us/22dmv.html

No, but in some states you might be if you loaned it to him

The thing I've never gotten is why no DVD producers have already adopted this practice. They're all about value-add with piles of special features and such; why not stick an iTunes compatible file on the DVD and throw the iPod logo on there?

You know, if one reads the actual article where the TFA got its facts from wrong...

You'll notice that this "premium DVD" talk actually is based on the Die Hard 4 DVD, which "is also the first ever to include an electronic copy of the film which can be played on a computer and that also be imported into several models portable of video players" and "costs $3 or $4 more than an ordinary DVD." And has nothing to do with Steve Jobs whatsoever.

It would be interesting to look at the various sites privacy policies and see which (if any) of them allow sending data to Facebook without an opt-out. So for example, the New York Times privacy policy says they will not share information with third-party sites, and while IANAL it's not at all clear to me that the indiscriminate sharing going on here falls within the exceptions they list.

[..] Apple has relented and has agreed to a higher wholesale price for movies.

[..]the studios are hoping to create "premium" versions of DVDs that include a copy of the movie that can easily be put on an iPod

Let's say you take a editorial by David Brooks and paste it in without attribution.

Techdirt got the story completely wrong. To quote the NY TImes, which is the source of the TechDirt story;

"More interestingly perhaps, the studios are hoping to create "premium" versions of DVDs that include a copy of the movie that can easily be put on an iPod (and presumably a laptop with iTunes or an Apple TV). Fox has tried this already, with a version of "Die Hard 4 that includes a digital copy. Mr. Greenfield writes that this version costs $3 or $4 more than an ordinary DVD."

It's not Steve Jobs that is trying to charge more for the content, it's the studios. All Jobs is trying to do is get content onto the iTunes store.

Read the article.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/would-you-pay-more-for-a-dvd-with-an-itunes-copy/index.html

They've been promising us "instant-on" PCs forever. The technology is there now, but as Bruce Schneier indicates "... the current crop of major operating systems just don't" (from Freakonomics Q&A. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm from Missouri, so you'll have to Show-Me!

Aren't they?

2 Held in Curbside Sales of Automatic Weapons
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DC1F39F931A35757C0A965958260

Police Seize Mach 11 Machine Pistol From Teen (with silencer!)
http://www.channel3000.com/news/4607540/detail.html

Middletown Police Confiscate Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers
http://www.wtic.com/pages/1083618.php?
"Police obtained a search warrant and say they found automatic and semiautomatic weapons, grenades, bulletproof vests, swords, cross bows and bomb-making instructions."

These are just a few of the results from the first page of a quick googling of police confiscate automatic weapons machine pistols

On US Interrogation (sadly I cannot find the SF field manual): http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18779prs20041207.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques http://www.americanthinker.com/2004/10/torture_as_an_interrogation_te.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/washington/16cnd-formica.html http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305I.shtml http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1227&id=893492006 On the US School of Americas: http://www.soaw.org/ On Secret US Prisons: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1237589,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4461470.stm http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/19/afghan12319.htm http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/19/afghan12319.htm http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/64/22567 Now why is this important? Since the US keeps these prisons in secret locations which are never disclosed, the international red cross is never permitted to inspect them. Therefore, any sort of interrogation and torture technique used is carte blanche.

It seems apparent to me that if you know basic economics, you'd agree a single-payer system (not government administered, but government paid) would be more efficient overall.

We already pay for the health problems of the sick and poor. We pay for them in reduced productivity and early deaths. And more directly, we pay for them in our emergency medicine system. There are large numbers of people that cannot pay for health care and cannot be seen by a regular doc when their health problem is small. Because of the laws barring emergency rooms from refusing to treat, the people go there when their problem has escalated, resulting in less efficient emergency care. They can't pay the bill, and the hospital writes it off (paid for by taxpayers!) and raises prices elsewhere ($17 roll of gauze on your bill). The taxpayers / other patients foot the bill anyway, but we do it in the worst way. It would be far cheaper to just pay for preventative care on this person. That's why many insurers are now paying 100% on preventative care, because it's so much cheaper than paying for the problem after it escalates. There is also the drain on doctors as far as staffing, many of them having to outsource the billing to insurance. And of course, the overhead costs of the insurance companies, which as I recall are far higher than medicaid's overhead.

I'm not for across-the-board fixed drug prices, but I'm not about to throw the pity party you're demanding for big pharma. I'm aware of their me-too drugs and profits.

Given that we as human beings haven't had any significant predators and really don't forage for food...you'd expect those lesser-used parts of the brain to "grow limp"

You might find this interesting

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/nyregion/25magna.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Magna Carta for sale

I'm not saying that it's a commercialized product yet, but 454 Life Sciences has the technology to do it at that price. Read the NYTimes article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/science/31cnd-gene.html

This is how much your nazional debt is growing every minute.
Do you still believe you're running the Welt?